Ever wondered what it was like to live in a time when there were no x-rays, antibiotics, or hospitals? Here is your opportunity to find out! Inspired by the popularity of Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories, the award-winning historian and author, Hannah Newton, has created a special medical history workshop for children, ‘Sickly Smells & Putrid Potions’. Activities on offer include designing medicines based on real 17th century recipes, detecting disease from the sight and taste of pretend wee samples (a common diagnostic technique at this time!), and peeping into a model replica of a sickroom.
The workshop is a fun introduction to the history of medicine, designed to spark children’s curiosity about the past, and furnish them with new knowledge and skills. It also serves a more profound purpose: helping cultivate empathy for people who are unwell today, while providing a friendly environment in which participants can talk freely about a subject this is often taboo – illness.
The workshops will be running in 2018-2020 in Brownie and Cub packs and primary schools, and is suitable for children aged 7-12.